Command Line

The command line interface is an alternate method of interacting with macOS and Mac OS X, relying on text based command entry to execute commands and perform tasks. It is accessed on the Mac by using the Terminal application. Generally, the command line is considered advanced, and thus it’s usage tends to be more complex than many standard procedures on a Mac.

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How to Mount SMB Share from Command Line on Mac

Feb 13, 2023 - 2 Comments
Mac Terminal icon

Need to mount an SMB network share from the command line of MacOS? There are a few different approaches to mount SMB shares from the command line, and we’ll cover two different methods to mount network shares on the Mac using Terminal.

Open Terminal by Keyboard Shortcut on Mac

Feb 6, 2023 - 3 Comments
Open Terminal by keyboard shortcut on Mac

Ever wished you could instantly launch the Terminal app on Mac by keyboard shortcut? Instead of relying on Spotlight and typing Terminal and hitting return, which works great and has for many years, you can actually create your own custom keyboard shortcut to open the Terminal app on MacOS. This article will detail how you … Read More

How to Install Homebrew on MacOS Ventura

Dec 28, 2022 - 4 Comments
Homebrew on MacOS Ventura

HomeBrew, the command line package manager, has native support for macOS Ventura 13, so if you have recently updated to macOS Ventura or bought a new Mac with Ventura preinstalled, you’ll probably want to install Homebrew on the Mac running Ventura. Like most command line tools, HomeBrew is intended for advanced users that like to … Read More

Take Full Webpage Screenshots on Mac via Command Line with webkit2png

Nov 27, 2022 - 3 Comments
Mac Terminal icon

Ever needed to take a full webpage scrolling screenshot on the Mac through the command line? While there are various approaches to taking full webpage screenshots on a Mac easily with Firefox or another browser, and many ways to take screenshots on the Mac, including taking screenshots from the Terminal, none of the native options … Read More

How to Clear DNS Cache in MacOS Ventura & MacOS Monterey

Nov 21, 2022 - Leave a Comment
Mac Terminal icon

Mac users may need to occasionally clear out and flush DNS cache in MacOS, perhaps because they modified their hosts file, or for troubleshooting purposes. Resetting DNS cache on the Mac is generally only needed by advanced users, but even novice Mac users should find the process to be pretty easy, though it is achieved … Read More

How to Open Google Chrome from Terminal on Mac

Nov 19, 2022 - 2 Comments
Google Chrome Icon

Command line users may encounter situations where they’d like to open the Google Chrome web browser directly from the Terminal on the Mac.

How to Schedule Boot / Turn On, Shutdown, Wake / Sleep on MacOS Ventura

Nov 10, 2022 - 26 Comments
Mac Terminal icon

Scheduling a Mac to boot, sleep, and shutdown, have been longstanding features in the Energy preference panel on Mac OS since the beginning of the operating system, so if you updated to macOS Ventura and now you’re wondering where those settings went, you aren’t alone. You can still schedule a Mac to turn on and … Read More

How to Rename & Move Files with Spaces in Name at Command Line

Oct 21, 2022 - 1 Comment
Interact with file name that contains spaces in the command line on Mac

If you’re new to the Mac command line you may have come across a situation where you’re trying to interact with a file that has spaces in the name, for example “This File.txt” but as you probably discovered, you can’t simply type the file name if there are spaces within the file name, or the … Read More

Hosts File Not Working on Mac? Try This Fix

Sep 6, 2022 - 2 Comments
Hosts file on the Mac

Some Mac users have discovered that the hosts file in MacOS does not appear to work, or changes to the /etc/hosts file on the Mac are seemingly ignored. Given that the hosts file is used to map IP addresses to host names, and is frequently modified by advanced users, this is an understandably annoying problem. … Read More

How to Download iCloud Photos via the Command Line

Aug 2, 2022 - 6 Comments
Download iCloud Photos via Command Line

Ever wanted to download all photos from iCloud Photos using the command line? Thanks to the third party icloud_photos_downloader tool, you can do just that. Called icloudpd for short, it works to access and download photos directly from iCloud using the command line on a Mac, Windows PC, or Linux.

How to Turn On SSH on Mac

Jul 8, 2022 - 1 Comment
Enable SSH Server on Mac with Remote Login

All Macs have a bundled SSH server that is disabled by default, but can be turned on at any time if you’d like to grant remote command line access to a machine. The SSH server in MacOS is turned on by using a sharing feature called Remote Login. With Remote Login enabled, the Mac now … Read More

How to SSH to Mac from iPad

May 24, 2022 - 7 Comments
SSH to Mac from iPad

Want to SSH into your Mac, from your iPad? SSH is pretty easy to setup, so if you’d like to have Terminal access of an iMac from an iPad Pro, for example, you’ll be up working in no time at all.

How to Clear Icon Cache on Mac

May 23, 2022 - 6 Comments
Clear icon cache on the Mac

Occasionally, Mac users may notice that icons in the Finder of MacOS or the Dock of MacOS either display as generic icons, or the icons do not align with what they should (for example, seeing a generic document icon instead of a PDF thumbnail, or seeing a VLC icon instead of a zip archive icon, … Read More

How to Check SHA512 Checksum on Mac

May 8, 2022 - 2 Comments
Mac Terminal icon

SHA512 hashes are often used to determine data integrity, whether for matching a downloaded file to an original on a server, or for command output, or to make sure a file transfer was successful, or not tampered with. Checking a SHA512 hash is pretty easy on a Mac, thanks to bundled command line tools that … Read More

Easily Bulk Download & Install Mac Apps with macapps.link

May 2, 2022 - 3 Comments
Download and install a bunch of Mac apps at once via the command line

Ready to automate Mac app downloads and installs? If you’re setting up a new Mac, you probably know how tedious it is to manually navigate to a bunch of different developer websites, and to individually download and install all the Mac apps you may want. This is a necessary but time consuming procedure for setting … Read More

How to Change or Remove Font Smoothing on MacOS Monterey & Big Sur

Apr 6, 2022 - 6 Comments
How to Change or Remove Font Smoothing on Mac

Are you noticing blurry text on your Mac’s display while navigating through the menu and across apps? More specifically, has this been an issue ever since you updated to macOS Monterey or Big Sur, and on a non-retina display? If so, chances are, font smoothing is enabled by default, and for some users they feel … Read More

Enable Low Power Mode on Mac via Command Line

Mar 30, 2022 - 2 Comments
Enable Low Power Mode on Mac Laptop from the command line

If you are a Mac laptop user and you spend a lot of time at the command line, you may appreciate knowing that you can enable Low Power Mode on a Mac laptop through a terminal command. Enabling Low Power Mode through the command line on a MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and MacBook is the … Read More

How to Install nano Text Editor on Mac Again

Mar 27, 2022 - 9 Comments
Get nano on macOS again instead of pico

If you have attempted to use nano at the command line on MacOS recently, you may have noticed that the pico text editor is launched instead, via a symlink for /usr/bin/nano to pico. This is because the latest versions of MacOS remove the nano text editor from the command line for whatever reason, and instead … Read More

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